Case Number 03385

LOVE HINA AGAIN

The Charge

It's Love Hina Again! Welcome back!

Opening Statement

With 25 television episodes (24 released in North America) and two
full-length OVA specials, the Love Hina canon is a verbose one, and the Love
Hina following is a mile thick. Incredibly popular in both Japan and North
America, the series has tickled the sexual funny bone of many a youth in its
heyday, and now, with the North American release of Love Hina Again, a
sequel of sorts, these final three episodes round out the animated series as a
whole, and offer an enjoyable if slightly ambiguous conclusion.

Wildly entertaining, with fantastic production values (sans crummy extras),
Love Hina Again is still an excellent buy, and a fine ending point for a
solid anime.

Facts of the Case

The story, thus far, if you are new to the Love Hina series, is long,
complicated, and fraught with scantily clad women. Unfortunately, it would take
a long, long time go over the storyline here.

So here is the story so far:

As a child, Keitaro used to play with his childhood love down at the
playground near a hotel that was owned by his grandmother. Together, they made a
binding promise to get into Tokyo University together, because it is said that
if two people can get into Tokyo University, they can achieve happiness.

As he finishes high school, Keitaro is driven by this promise that he made
so many years ago, and strives with all his might to get into Tokyo University.
However, there are two problems: one, he is a terrible student, and two; he
cannot even remember the girl's name he made the promise to.

Failing the exam numerous times, he moves out of his parents' house and goes
back to his grandmother's inn. Turns out, however, the inn has been converted
long ago into an all-girls dormitory, and when the girls find him there...well,
you get the idea.

When all is eventually sorted out, Keitaro is designated the new manager for
the dormitory, and he spends his days clumsily barging into rooms where girls
are changing, only to get the living daylights pounded out of him for his
troubles.

Eventually, all the girls become enraptured with Keitaro, and one in
particular seems to be especially drawn to him. Her name is Naru, and she is
trying to get into Tokyo University as well. Could she be his childhood love? Or
could it be Mutsumi, another resident, whom he feels himself drawn too as
well?

Okay. See, that wasn't so bad, was it?

That covers about 24 episodes worth of the series. We'll skip over the
specials, and fast forward a bit.

Love Hina Again is a collection of three OVAs that finalize the
ending of the series, and act as a finale of sorts. With Naru having previously
declared her love for Keitaro, and with both of them getting into Tokyo
University, their love appeared to be a done deal. However, in typical clumsy
fashion, Keitaro busts his leg up on his first day of Tokyo University classes,
and ends up an archeological assistant until his leg heals and he can resume
classes. Naru, on the other hand, has developed a strong fear of commitment.
Enter a new, super-strict manager at the old hotel, and trouble begins to brew
in the air.

When Keitaro returns, he finds his young stepsister, Kanako, in charge of
the Hinata Apartments, whom he does not recognize -- partly due to her
constantly whipping off her clothes off and chasing him around. She is
interested in her old brother, to say the least, and makes reference to a
"promise" made years ago...

Naru is jealous, of course, but cannot bring herself to commit to Keitaro in
strong terms, and insists that they have a business relationship, nothing more.
This paves the way for Kanako's romantic advances, and suddenly, Keitaro is in
over his head, stumbling around and getting punched a lot for his troubles.

The Evidence

To fans of the Love Hina series, Love Hina Again will be as
comforting as a summer breeze. We are on familiar territory here. Though the
main story arc has run its course, these three OVAs do an excellent job at
weaving humorous situational comedy with romantic tension, same as before.

Of course, there is nothing here that fans haven't seen before, a hundred
thousand times before, even -- but if repetition bothered you, well, odds are
that you never would have made it past the first few episodes, and wouldn't be a
fan.

Newcomers can dive into the DVD relatively quickly, despite having missed
out on a significant portion of storyline, and appreciate the anime for its
other, subtle points -- lots of scantily clad girls kicking the crap out of a
guy, each other, etcetera. If you have seen other similar-styled anime like
Ranma 1/2, Oh! My Goddess, or even Sailor Moon, you should
have a pretty good idea of what to expect here.

The laughs are first-rate though, if you like this sort of thing
(surprisingly, I seem to).

The rating system for anime is slightly obtuse -- given the sexual humor,
brief nudity, and other adult-related situations in Love Hina, the studio
affixes the arbitrary rating of 16+, which, I assume, means the show is best
watched with sixteen of your friends. But in terms of an actual rating system,
well, there is nothing concrete. And, with anime being the mainstream rage
nowadays, and young boys and girls being absolutely crazy about the stuff, one
should have a good idea of what animated material children can get their hands
on. While there is nothing substantially "naughty" or profane in
Love Hina, if you are a cautious parent, I would play it conservative,
and set the bar at sixteen. More outgoing parents would have no problem with
fourteen or fifteen-year-old children watching Love Hina. But go crazy, I
say -- as long as they're not my kids!

...Gee, I hope they're not my kids. That would suck.

Technically, Love Hina Again is a fantastic DVD. The video quality is
pristine, clear, and sharp, and looks downright spectacular. You can get really
psyched about anime on DVD when the picture looks as good as this, let me tell
you! Finding flaw is difficult, and the worst criticism is merely a minor gaffe.
At high levels of zoom, the picture begins to show slight breakdown and
jaggedness. Viewed normally, however, the picture quite excellent, with a nice
balance between softness and sharpness in the lines of the character.

Likewise, the sound is most excellent, and there is minimal difference in
the Japanese audio track and the English dubbed track, both in a respectable
Dolby Digital 2.0 mix that offers a pleasant balance between dialogue and
comedic sound effects, which this disc has in spades.

The subtitles are particularly witty and sharp, and feel very well written
and on-target, which is great, because the English voice dub is a particularly
corny and gruesome one. The feel of the show comes from the timing and the voice
actor's screams of fear and shock and embarrassment after stumbling into room
after room of naked girls, and try as they might, the English dub fails to
capture the heart and spirit of it. Steer clear of the dubbed English track as a
whole, and you will be much happier, I assure you.

Extras include an "outtakes" section, which lasts about 20 seconds
and is so blindingly bad that it almost instantly erases itself from your
memory. It is about as substantial as a "reversible cover" extra
feature, which, coincidentally, Love Hina Again has as well. I mean, the
only thing worse would be say, a textless opening and ending -- that would just
be r...oh, wait a minute. Guess what Love Hina Again has?

Bah! It does not matter -- I can say that unequivocally. Anime DVD extras
are always a mixed bag, with the bag containing things like rocks, twigs, and
pieces of dirt. This offering of weak extras is nothing to hold against the DVD
as a whole, though this is the disc's only flaw. Still, the fact that any extras
are offered at all is something -- this is an anime DVD after all.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

There isn't much wrong with this disc. Sure, the lack of good extras is
annoying, and the especially bad offering this time is almost worse than no
offerings at all, in terms of pride and dignity. But, the sound is great, the
video is great, the story is funny and amusing, and the packaging case is even a
fancy transparent job.

The English dub is awful, of course, but since 99% of all anime is served up
this way in North America, it becomes increasingly difficult to put red marks on
a disc for this egregiousness. Likewise, for an anime release, the special
features even feel fairly plentiful, despite being not.

Just imagine that there was something seriously wrong with this disc, and
then you read about it here, and then you got all pleasantly angry about it, but
you forgot it right away, and that would bring us to here. Okay? Good.

Closing Statement

Love Hina certainly ranks among the funniest of the "sexual
comedy" anime genre, and this disc is an excellent close to a long-running,
popular series (though the Love Hina series is notoriously vague in terms
of what constitutes a "finale," and as always, much room is left for
potential sequels.)

However, since this is the (current) summation to a long-running anime
series, unless you own all the previous anime (which would be a financial feat
indeed) it seems audacious to recommend this as a purchase, since as a fan who
owns all the anime in this long-running series, you would have already bought
this by now. Right?

For those casual fans of the show, or those merely curious, these episodes
are hilarious indeed, but make a poor starting place in terms of appreciating
the series -- and you may indeed want to do some appreciating, after seeing
these hilarious three OVAs. Despite this logistical nightmare, Love
Hina Again is a fantastic anime DVD, and if starting at the finish line
bothers you not? Well, you will hear no complaints from this judge if you
acquire this DVD for your own. Plus, for fans of the show, it offers the last
taste of a great series that they are ever likely to get in North America.

The Verdict

What -- you've got a problem with a cartoon that involves scantily clad women
constantly in states of undress, waiting for the hapless protagonist to bumble
in and discover them?

The court hereby sentences whomever fits this description to a maximum
sentence of watching Love Hina Again, again and again, until the show
gets funnier, or the accused gets more funny -- whichever comes first.